How to Share Android’s VPN connection over WiFi Hotspot (Root)

Most Android smartphones let you share mobile data over hotspot. Some high-end Android phones like the Samsung Note 9, Pixel 3 even let you share WiFi over hotspot. But in both situations, Android restricts sharing your VPN services. Fortunately, there is a workaround, which lets you do that with simple third-party app installation.

This comes in handy when you want to watch geo-restricted content on devices like chromecast and Roku that don’t have a native option to change DNS or install VPN app. So, let’s see how to share a VPN on Android.

How to Share VPN on Android

Step 1: First of all, get your rooted Android device. Next up, you need to install a free app VPN Hotspot from the Google Play Store.

Step 2: Upon installation when you open the app first, you will be prompted for the superuser (root) permission. If you don’t have Magisk Manager or SuperSU installed, the app doesn’t prompt that it is not a rooted device.

Finally, head over to the VPN Hotspot app and tap on “Wi-Fi hotspot”. This will lead to a virtual wireless LAN creation with a name such as “swlan0”. You need to tap the switch beside it to turn on the VPN hotspot.

If you get an error saying “Created process is not a shell”, make sure you have provided root permissions to the VPN Hotspot app.

Step 4: Next up, connect the other device like chromecast, Roku or even your laptop to the Mobile Hotspot normally. You will have the same native Wi-Fi name and credentials. Once you connect to the mobile hotspot you will see your device appear in the Client tab on the VPN Hotspot app.

In case you don’t have Internet working on the connected device, change your DNS Server to 8.8.8.8 or any public DNS server. There are high chances that the connected device will take the DNS server as 192.168.43.1. Now, this DNS server is your mobile which does not have any entries. Hence, it is not able to resolve DNS names for you.

You can if the DNS Server is working by pinging 8.8.8.8 and then google.com. In most cases, the IP Address will be pingable but the DNS name google.com won’t. This means that the DNS server is not able to resolve the DNS name “google.com” as it doesn’t have any entries or DNS server is not configured on it.

ping google.com

Closing Words

The VPN hotspot app is a great app to share your VPN with all your home devices. Do note that, VPN hotspot doesn’t make any permanent changes to your wi-fi or vendor files with just one exception. For Android 9+ devices, if you configure repeater credentials, the app modifies “/data/misc/wifi/p2p_supplicant.conf” or “/data/vendor/wifi/wpa/p2p_supplicant.conf” files. To revert it back, just delete that file and restart your device.

If the Internet stops working on any device, try clearing DNS or restart the affected device. For any other queries about the app, you can visit VPN Hotspot’s GitHub page. The app has an extremely active development and the developer is quick to respond to queries.

For further more queries or clarifications, let me know in the comments below.